WIAC

Just a few thoughts. Platteville definitely gets an “attaboy” for their 2nd place finish. Are they a new power, are other schools slipping, or both?

Congrats to Garcia on a big win, I remember coaching against him when he was in HS and racing his older brother even still. Oh, and, ho hum, another title for my alma mater! With a damn impressive show of depth.

It does seem like Platteville shows up every once in a while. As for the rest of the teams, based on polls, it seems that others think the WIAC is down a bit. Of course, I’ve seen the polls underestimate the WIAC frequently in the past. It will be interesting to see what happens when the NCAA meet rolls around.

so, this new system pretty much says……ok if you have a ton of schools, that means they MUST be good then. Therefore, assuming you are good due to the sheer number of you, we will let more of you into the meet. As for the midwest, nevermind that you are the POWER in D3 cross, there just aren’t enugh teams to get you more spots. 4 teams in the top 10, not good enough.

What was wrong with the old way? The better your regions teams did at NATS, the more or less teams you got the next year. With 3 WIAC teams in the top 6….yes….let another one in, and they will probably be top 10-12. Forget the Frostburg states who make it every year and get last. Why would you want the team that finished 2nd to them in there anyway?

Man, what a crock.Unfortunately, we won’t see the best teams at the meet. I mean, we still will up front, but not in the 10-15 spots.

It’s simply a joke. What is this talk about a national meet that is supposed to be a geographic representation of the country? Every region is represented with at least one team. A national meet is a National CHAMPIONSHIP! That means the best teams should be there, no matter where the best teams are from. I remember one year when I was in school that the Midwest went 1-2-3-5 at Nationals. According to this plan, a top-5 team is out and potentially, depending on how they placed at the regional meet, a team that should have won a trophy is watching instead of racing (wouldn’t have happened in this case).

The old system wasn’t perfect but this system is even worse. If you want more balance, say each region gets 2 automatic qualifiers and the rest of the teams will be chosen by a selection committee.

Also, what’s the talk of adjusting the regions? Throw Minnesota into the Midwest and you have an even greater imbalance of power. This year, you’d be adding St. Olaf and Carleton. Other years, you might be adding St. Johns or St. Thomas. If the regions are going to be adjusted in any way, Wisconsin and Illinois should be separated and segmenting Wisconsin itself wouldn’t be uncalled for. No matter what, if UWL, UWO, UWSP, and North Central are all in the same region, you are going to have an uneven distribution of strength. Especially with the likes of UWW, UWP, Augustana, Chicago, and others always seeming to produce at least one or two strong teams between them. The bottom line is there are too many strong teams in the upper midwest and too few strong teams in other parts of the country to break up the regions in an equal way. Because of that, you need a way to make sure good teams from the strong regions get in instead of lesser teams from weak regions.

Agreed. “They” are shooting for a geographical representation, AND the best teams. But that just can’t happen. I will admit that it dies come to a point where you have to tell the midwest, sorry, but if you wanna go to Nats. you gotta run yer arse off at Regions. In a way it sucks, but thats life. I will say that I think it blows that this will happen SIMPLY because “they” want an equal distribution of qualifying spots. That is just way to touchy feely for me. It leans a bit towards “fairness” than competition for my blood.

If you did allow 2 teams from each region that may work, but ONLY if we then do at large bids. On the other hand…..we are now letting the team that finishes second to the Frostburg States of the world in. Hooray for a Regional that gets last at second to last at Nats! Lame.

man….just think of what will happen in the BCS if the Badgers go undefeated!!!

Agreed. “They” are shooting for a geographical representation, AND the best teams. But that just can’t happen.

Exactly. If it’s a national championship meet, you can not expect balanced geographical representation because certain parts of the country are simply stronger. You currently have all regions represented and stronger regions getting more representation. What’s wrong with that? This is a step backward for a true national championship as it will result in replacing stronger teams with weaker teams. If it’s a true national championship, you want the strongest teams in the nation, not some “we are the world” gathering of teams from all over the place. If the strongest teams are bunched in one region, that region’s representation should reflect that fact.

ferris wrote:

I will admit that it dies come to a point where you have to tell the midwest, sorry, but if you wanna go to Nats. you gotta run yer arse off at Regions. In a way it sucks, but thats life.

Of course. Even with the midwest having 5 qualifiers and other region(s) having one, there were still situations where midwest teams that were better than teams running at nationals were left home. It blows but you deal with it. This new system simply makes a less than ideal system even worse. Heck, put it in place this year and a top 10 ranked team could be left home. Put it in place one year I can think of and a top 5 team at nationals never would have been there. It will never be fair, life is not fair, but taking a system that is not perfect and making it even worse does not seem like a wise move.

ferris wrote:

I will say that I think it blows that this will happen SIMPLY because “they” want an equal distribution of qualifying spots. That is just way to touchy feely for me. It leans a bit towards “fairness” than competition for my blood.

To me, as was mentioned in that thread, it leans too much toward “it’s just a game, let’s not keep score” for my taste. It started with the little kids, worked its way up through high school, now it’s creeping into the collegiate system.

ferris wrote:

If you did allow 2 teams from each region that may work, but ONLY if we then do at large bids. On the other hand…..we are now letting the team that finishes second to the Frostburg States of the world in. Hooray for a Regional that gets last at second to last at Nats! Lame.

At large bids would be a requirement of that kind of system. If nothing else, go down the final poll of the season and start picking teams that were not in the top 2 at their region until you fill the at large spots. As for the second place teams in a weak region, it would seem pathetic to see a #1 runner finishing in 27+ and a #7 runner in 30+ at a national championship but it would be a compromise to make those from weaker regions happy.

ferris wrote:

man….just think of what will happen in the BCS if the Badgers go undefeated!!!

Maybe we need a BCS style system to pick the D3 qualifiers. I bet that would make everyone happy.

Man, I think of the region with all the WIAC schools and North Central……if we put this new system in say 10 years ago, many times the eventual NATIONAL CHAMPION would have not made it in to the meet!!!

The preverbial cookie will crumble on a few teams in the years to come.

Really, the only way to get a good system is to split up those teams. Put Oshkosh, Whitewater, and possibly Platteville in with the Illinois schools. Then, put Point and La Crosse, along with the rest of the WIAC, in with Minnesota. Even then, though, you’re going to end up with a situation where a team needs to be a top 10 team, if not a top 5 team, to make it to nationals. Of course, now, there’s a real chance that a top 5 team could miss out on nationals.

Remember 1996 when Point won conference, Oshkosh won regional, and La Crosse won nationals? The top 4 at nationals was La Crosse, North Central, Point, Oshkosh. If I remember, didn’t North Central finish 4th at the regional meet? If that’s right, the #2 team at nationals, only 8 points out of first, would have been watching instead of racing under the new system. Regardless of who was 4th at regionals, a trophy winner would have been watching. Heck, Augustana, the 5th team from the midwest region, was 10th. If the number of teams a region could qualify wasn’t capped, the midwest could have had 6 teams at nationals in 1997.

By the way, I saw on that other thread that someone said this is just like the Olympics and World Championships. Nobody thinks the US should not be sending distance runners when faster Kenyans, Ethiopians, and Japanese are left home. Well, that person was wrong. I think especially the World Championships but also the Olympics should remove national affiliations and allow the best of the best in. If that means it’s only Kenyans in the steeplechase, so be it. It’s a championship race and the best of the best should not have to stay home because they are from the wrong country (or, in the discussion of the NCAA meet, school).

man, isn’t there SOMEONE who is making up this new way of qualifying that remembers things like that. In todays day of having past results like that at your fingertips, you would THINK they’d do some research…..but that may make too much sense, I guess.